Apologising for the Wrong Thing

A little addendum to yesterday’s monster post.

Ivan Oransky reports that, before deleting her Twitter account, Hope Amantine had apparently also said in a tweet that the story was “not meant to offend”. I’ve noticed that a lot recently: a person does something wrong, is publicly called out for it, and apologises for any offence caused. Greenpeace apologised for any offence caused when they trampled over the Nazca lines. Gary Barlow apologised for any offence caused by the stories about his tax-dodging. (Not for offence caused by tax dodging, but for offence caused by the world having come to know of it, natch.)

I hate it when people say that.

It reduces moral discourse to one of whether or not Smith was sufficiently courteous. Moral discourse is richer than that. Hell, moral discourse has got almost nothing to do with that.

More, I doubt anyone was offended in any of those cases. That wasn’t the problem. Lying was; trampling humanity’s patrimony was; dodging tax was. Apologising for causing offence is a non-apology, and leaves the real moral problem utterly unremarked.

I just wanted to get that off my chest. As you were.

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